{"id":1177,"date":"2013-11-20T06:46:02","date_gmt":"2013-11-20T11:46:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.totalengagementconsulting.com\/blog\/?p=1177"},"modified":"2013-11-22T10:51:59","modified_gmt":"2013-11-22T15:51:59","slug":"investing-2014-part-2-2-opening-market","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.totalengagementconsulting.com\/blog\/2013\/11\/investing-2014-part-2-2-opening-market\/","title":{"rendered":"Investing in 2014 \u2013 Part 2 of 2 \u2013 Opening Up a New Market!"},"content":{"rendered":"

In Part 1 of this series, Investing in Organizational and Personal Career (link)<\/strong><\/a> I explored the need to focus on career development both within your organizations for all your people as well as for your own personal growth. In addition I introduced a new affiliate relationship and featured links to two interesting articles on the web \u2013 on why people hate their jobs and career and financial advice for young professionals. Link to last week\u2019s blog<\/strong><\/a> to get caught up on this topic. Now looking ahead to 2014, part 2 of this series is about opening up new markets in 2014, and I want to propose a focus on one of the fastest growing and most dynamic segments, the LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender) market.
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\"Are<\/a>

Are you prepared to serve this two lesbian customers with dignity and respect?<\/p><\/div> Just looking within the United States alone, many diversity market place studies place the LGBT disposable income at between $700 – $800B! Even though the number of LGBT people may be smaller than numbers of Asians, Blacks or Hispanics in the US, the disposable income is in the same range. The primary reason is that at least for now, a smaller percentage of LGBT people are raising children (which costs a whole lot of money), which provides more money available for other purchasing decisions. Maybe you should plan to expand into this market in 2014!<\/p>\n

One other very important point about the LGBT marketplace is that it is frequently more \u201cbrand-loyal\u201d to companies that reach out to them and treat them with respect, and more \u201cbrand-punishing\u201d to those companies that do very little to recognize the LGBT community or that even treat them negatively. It seems that on a monthly basis, there is some company that is highly publicized for a misstep with the LGBT community, or one that has done something very special to support the community.<\/p>\n

But it goes beyond just the end-consumer! This LGBT market discussion is also important to consider in B2B (or business to business) interactions. Companies that primarily sell to other companies need to be acutely aware that key decision makers they are calling on could be LGBT or strong supporters. Plus an increasing number of very large firms look at potential suppliers\u2019 diversity policies as part of their buying criteria. And many include LGBT-owned businesses as part of their supplier diversity mix and are corporate partners of the NLGCC (National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce.)<\/strong><\/a>
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\"I<\/a>

I am now an affiliate partner of LGBT Marketing and Communications expert Jenn T. Grace, offering “How to Authentically Market to the Gay Community”<\/p><\/div>
\nThrough my consulting practice, I can assist you in your LGBT corporate diversity strategy and training; take a look at my services (link)<\/strong><\/a> and also take my 13-question GLBT Diversity quiz<\/strong><\/a> to see how your organization rates as LGBT-inclusive. <\/p>\n

And now through an affiliate partnership with Jenn T. Grace \u2013 you can gain the marketing and communications expertise via the \u201cHow to Authentically Market to the Gay Community.\u201d Check out the details on my affiliates web page (link)<\/strong><\/a> or to start now, link to Jenn\u2019s free introductory video series.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

I am hoping to see the economy to continue to improve in 2014, but in addition to growing with that wave, don\u2019t you want to grow faster than the market? Consider a special effort to court and win LGBT business in 2014!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In Part 1 of this series, Investing in Organizational and Personal Career (link) I explored the need to focus on career development both within your organizations for all your people as well as for your own personal growth. In addition … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[92,493,494,303,356,490,492,491,225,96,489,99],"class_list":["post-1177","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general-info","tag-career-development","tag-corporate-diversity-strategy","tag-jenn-t-grace","tag-lgbt-business","tag-lgbt-community","tag-lgbt-disposable-income","tag-lgbt-market","tag-lgbt-marketplace","tag-national-gay-and-lesbian-chamber-of-commerce","tag-nglcc","tag-personal-career","tag-supplier-diversity"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.totalengagementconsulting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1177","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.totalengagementconsulting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.totalengagementconsulting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.totalengagementconsulting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.totalengagementconsulting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1177"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.totalengagementconsulting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1177\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.totalengagementconsulting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.totalengagementconsulting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.totalengagementconsulting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}